Over the years, XRP has turned out to be one of the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market.
XRP's growth in terms of price has been largely affected by the just-concluded legal battle between the SEC and Ripple Labs (the issuers of XRP).
The XRP ledger, after being created in 2011 and launched in 2012 (older than Ethereum, and almost as old as Bitcoin), still trades disappointingly under the dollar mark at the time of writing.
But what if XRP's true price is supposed to be closer to Ethereum and Bitcoin's?
Quite recently, a recent "research calculator" created by Athey and Mitchnick has predicted a possible price for XRP in only a few years, that can only be described as "insane".
Here's everything you need to know
The CEO of Archax Graham Rodford, initially issued the prediction on which this "research calculator" is based.
During his 2020 Swell conference speech, Rodford predicted that by the fourth quarter of 2025, the XRPL (XRP ledger) could process $50 trillion in volume.
Rodford based his prediction on the increasing institutional adoption of blockchain technology, and the rate at which real-world assets are being tokenized (as we have seen with NFTs).
Rodford maintained that the XRPL may be the perfect platform for enabling the transfer of wealth across different asset classes because of its quick, scalable, and highly cheap transactions.
Additionally, he pointed out that the $50 trillion volume would only make up a small portion of the $1.5 quadrillion worldwide market, suggesting that XRPL and XRP still have a lot of space to develop.
Here comes the thunder…
So, what if Rodford's projection comes true? What would it mean for XRP's price? This is where the Athey and Mitchnick calculator comes in handy.
The calculator is based on a valuation model developed by former Ripple employee David Mitchnick and Stanford University economics professor Susan Athey.
The model uses the predicted future cash flows of XRP, minus the cost of capital, to determine the cryptocurrency's estimated value.
The model also takes in parameters like the number of XRP transactions, the average time between transactions, the store of value of XRP, the amount of XRP in circulation, and the discount rate of the cryptocurrency.
Judging by this, Blockchain researcher, Collin Brown says that XRP could rally to as high as $900 by 2025.
Because…
If the volume of transactions involving XRP is $50 trillion, the average time between transactions is 5 days, the market cap of XRP is $27 billion (current value), and the circulating supply of XRP is 58.8 billion (current value plus estimated inflation), then XRP should (theoretically) be around this figure in under three years (assuming Rodford, Athey and Mitchnick are all right).
Yes, these figures sound crazy.
Theoretically, XRP should be closer to $1,000, considering its tokenomics, use cases, transaction volumes to date, circulating supply and even sheer age.
However, there is no guarantee that the XRP ledger would have processed this $50 trillion in transaction volumes that Rodford predicts.
Other external factors could affect XRP in the long run, including regulatory pressure, macroeconomic issues, as well as other issues affecting the general crypto market.
These bits of speculation only serve as educated guesses about what the XRP ledger could achieve if it leverages its potential in all the right ways.
According to the weekly chart below, XRP appears to be testing an ascending trendline as shown below:
XRP is now testing the $0.5 support fully and may be about to rebound off this price level, after holding on since October last year.
The cryptocurrency currently trades at around $0.5 at the time of writing and has an 84% rally to $0.92 as its first target.
If we eventually see a break above the $1 mark, XRP could be ready to rally further up to $1.4, and even retake its all-time high around $2 as the XRP bull market gets ushered in.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.